Arias resumes testimony in Arizona murder trial
3/13/2013PHOENIX — A prosecutor questioning Jodi Arias in her Arizona death penalty trial on Wednesday repeatedly pointed at her and angrily raised his voice as he said it was impossible for the killing of her boyfriend to have occurred the way she contends.
Arias is charged with first-degree murder in the June 2008 death of Travis Alexander in his suburban Phoenix home. Authorities say she planned the killing in a jealous rage, but Arias says it was self-defense when Alexander attacked her after a day of sex.
On Wednesday, Arias took the witness stand for the 18th day. Prosecutor Juan Martinez showed her two photographs taken 62 seconds apart — one of Alexander alive in the shower, the other a portion of his bloodied body.
Arias has said she was taking provocative pictures of Alexander in the shower when she dropped his camera and he became enraged, forcing her to fight for her life.
“You drop the camera ... you are body-slammed, you get away, you go down the hallway, you go in the closet, you get the gun, you go into the bathroom ... You shoot him, he goes down ... and then, after you're able to get away, you go get the knife and you end up at the end of the hallway? All of this in 62 seconds?” Martinez snapped.
“No, that's not what I'm saying,” Arias replied, reminding the prosecutor of her memory gaps from the day of the killing, and that she had no recollection of grabbing a knife.
“Definitely after the gun went off ... I don't know, it starts to get a little more confusing,” Arias added.
Martinez is trying to show Arias took time to think about what she was doing during the attack.
“You didn't have the knife in your hand when you shot him,” he said. “So that means, if you didn't have the knife in your hand, you had to go get it from somewhere, right?”
“I don't know,” Arias replied.
Alexander suffered nearly 30 knife wounds, was shot in the head and had his throat slit before Arias dragged his body into his shower. He was found by friends about five days later.
Arias has said she remembers little from the day of the killing but recalls Alexander attacking her in a fury. She says she ran into his closet to retrieve a gun he kept on a shelf and fired in self-defense. She said she has no memory of stabbing him.
She also has acknowledged dumping the gun in the desert after the killing, getting rid of her bloody clothes, and leaving the victim a voicemail on his mobile phone hours later in an attempt to avoid suspicion. She says she was too scared and ashamed to tell the truth.
Arias’ grandparents had reported a .25-caliber handgun stolen from their Northern California home about a week before Alexander's death — the same caliber used to shoot him — but Arias says she didn't take it. Authorities believe she brought it with her.
Since testimony began in early January, none of Arias’ allegations of Alexander's violence, that he owned a gun or had sexual desires for young boys have been corroborated by witnesses or evidence. She has acknowledged lying repeatedly but insists she is telling the truth now.
She initially told authorities she had nothing to do with the killing then blamed it on masked intruders. Two years after her arrest, she settled on self-defense.
Arias has been testifying over nearly six weeks during which she has described her abusive childhood, cheating boyfriends, dead-end jobs, a raunchy sexual relationship with the victim, and her contention that Alexander had grown physically abusive in the months leading to his death, once even choking her into unconsciousness.